![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Ask a manager: our highly-paid, overworked junior staff keep leaving just as we get them fully train
Yanked from here: https://www.askamanager.org/2021/10/our-highly-paid-overworked-junior-staff-keep-leaving-just-as-we-get-them-fully-trained.html
A reader writes:
I work in an industry that is well known for long, hard hours, especially at junior levels. It’s one that has been all over the newspaper the past couple years for difficulty retaining junior professional staff and attempts to roll out more work-life balance. That said, it’s also (a) very well paid at the junior level, think 23 years old and making $275k-$200k; and (b) very competitive.
We’ve been having issues with junior staff, who each went through a rigorous interview process where the lifestyle was made clear to them (100-hour weeks, in the office every weekend, two year program), quitting after 6-9 months. That is typically just when they are getting useful in what is effectively an apprenticeship program. Some are leaving us for competitors with bigger brand names, but others are making the jump into corporate jobs, usually in finance with mid-stage start-ups. We have raised pay twice in the past six months and have been in the press for a fair bit of success lately. But we can’t do our jobs effectively without junior resources. It’s a huge amount of work to get a 23-year-old working at a professional level, and because it’s client service if they aren’t available evenings / weekends then I have to be (high level manager bringing in significant business). That’s equated to me working each of the past six weekends to try and get junior staff more time off than I ever got when I was coming up, only to have the fourth team member this year quit.
So, obviously we can’t *force* anyone to keep working, but what else can we be doing to keep people for the full two-year program? We already defer most of the comp to year-end, with some smallish amount withheld for 12-24 months. I’m thinking of something along the lines of a contract that would acknowledge that the training provided has value that must be repaid if the person doesn’t stay for 24 months. Or making the majority of the salary and bonus contingent on staying for the full 24 months (i.e., you make $10k per month before bonus, but if you leave before 24 months you must repay $6k per month). I’m sympathetic to the pleas that this job is life-consuming, but it’s ALWAYS been that way and nobody pretends otherwise during the interview process. And, again, I’m doing similar hours in my mid-40s, with a family. This isn’t a hazing process, it’s just what the job is like. Ideally it gets better, although with the junior team working less than I did it seems like that might not be the case any more.
It sounds like labor conditions have changed and your company will need to adapt.
For whatever reason, what you offered in the past was attractive enough to keep people there for the whole two years, but now it’s not. (I suspect the reasons are a combination of our current job-seeker’s market and a broader shift in what workers consider acceptable to put up with, particularly among younger workers. Both of those and especially the latter are good for society, although they’re causing pain for your company.) You’re getting people signing up thinking they can do the hours, but then realizing that 100-hour weeks are soul-crushing and seeing opportunities out there that they like better.
To keep them, you need to be able to compete with the other options they have. That doesn’t just mean money; it means lifestyle too.
You’re looking at ways to penalize them for leaving … but having exhausted, overworked people who are there only because you will bill them if they leave is a recipe for demoralized and resentful staff.
What if you hired more junior staff, had them work fewer hours each, and lowered the pay accordingly? Everyone might be happier with that in the long run. It’s more people to supervise, and that’s more work … but it’s not more work than training people who then leave just as they’re becoming useful. It would also give you a far healthier workplace and would give you access to a pool of candidates who you miss out on entirely right now because they won’t consider working those hours.
Don’t get too attached to “it’s always been this way.” It’s not serving you anymore. And lots of things were always a certain way until someone looked at them and said, “We can do this better.”
no subject
The job I have now isn't too bad and a big part of me working at many hours as I do is because I keep forgetting that I am not expected to cover all departments at this company the way I needed to at the last one (I legit have PTSD from my decade at my family's company). Working on the healthier balance, getting there slowly
no subject
The situations you're describing aren't normal. You're still being taken advantage of. Your current boss is actively harmful to you.
I don't expect you to be able to hear what I'm saying, but it would be wrong for me not to say this.
(And as an aside: think about why you consider it wrong that workers who had more rights than you did refused to tolerate a job site you are describing as abusive. Please think about that.)
no subject
You also only have a slight snapshot of my last job, and you're making assumptions anyway. My boss was not always directly involved with the subcontractors we used - the head project manager was, and he was not a 70-year-old toddler throwing daily hissy fits because he didn't understand how to use a computer. And again, there's no reason to refuse to do an entire day of indoor work because there was light rain outside for half an hour.
Maybe you're so blinded by your thoughts and beliefs that you refuse to realize that people can have other opinions than you do.
no subject
The problem was your boss, not the union.
no subject
no subject